Quinsta - Could someone explain the genetics?

[Deekkru]

I fail when it comes to horses and genetics. All I can tell you is that I understand the anatomy, know the names of the most typical breeds, and there's a kind of pony called a Haflinger. And that...is the extent of my knowledge XD

Would someone be up to explaining the Quinsta genetics to me and helping me start figuring out my Quins' genetics? Thanks in advance!

[Ravvana]

Quinsta follow the same genetics at TheStable, which makes things a bit easier

Here is a basic outline of Stable genetics:
http://stable.colbyforkicks.com/genetics.html

The example images are from when I failed at coloring, but the genetics are all there and correct XD

I'd be happy to answer any specific questions that you have, but the best I can do without them is point you to that page

[Deekkru]

Specific questions? Hmmm...

1. How long is the string of genetics? What sort of things does it cover? (i.e. is it just the coat color/pattern, or does it include all of the stockings and stars and such?)

I've seen people with incomplete codes that are a bunch of questions marks with a few letters thrown in, but how do you know which code goes where?

2.

This is Gwendolyn. Her description has her as a female bay....but what code would I use? The word bay shows up a lot of times on the Stable's page, and I have no idea which one applies to my girl.

[toffeeca]

Lets see if I can help some.

For your questions
1. A string of genetics is 30-32 letters long (the brown gene is coded as two letters instead of the typical 1 letter) And it covers the coat color and patterns, but it does not cover stockings, stars, and other markings like that.

Most people write the code in the order that Ravv listed them on her website. The question marks are for unknown genes and the letters are known ones.

2. For your girl you would start at the top. So a horse is either Black based or red based. A black based horse is a bay, brown, or black horse and a red based horse is a chestnut. So for your girl she is black based. Black is dominant to red, so she could carry the red gene without showing it. There for the first part of her code would be

E?

Next we move on to the agouti, this is where we decide which shade of the black base she is. She can be bay, brown, or black. Bay is the most dominant and black is the most recessive. So since she is a bay we know she has an "A" but she could be hiding another bay, a brown, or a black gene behind that, so all we know is the "A"

E? A?

Next we look at the cream modifier, this is where you get your buckskins, perlinos, palominos, cremellos, smokey blacks, and smokey creams. The cream gene is an incomplete dominance gene, so there is a difference between a CC and a Cc in how they look, unlike the two other slots we have looked at thus far. Since your girl is not cream then she is recessive in this area.

E? A? cc

Next is roan and dun, they work the same way so we can look at them together. If the horse has one dominant gene they will show the trait, the chart on Ravv's site just says the specific names (like blue dun instead of black dun) but they mean the same thing. You girl doesn't have either of these so she is recessive in both.

E? A? cc rr dd

Then is grey.  If the horse is grey you will not know just from looking at it what all the genes we have already looked at are because grey masks them. The only genes that show on grey are white (which masks the grey), tobiano, overo, appaloosa, and flea bitten. Your girl is not grey so she is recessive.

E? A? cc rr dd gg

White is very similar to grey except it masks everything. One thing about white though is that you will never have a completely dominant white, it is called lethal white, so every white horse is "Ww". Your quin is not white, so we are recessive again.

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww

Then we have appaloosa. Appaloosa is a two part gene. The first part is the L's they say weither or not the appaloosa shows. So a "LL" and a "Ll" will show appaloosa while a "ll" does not. Even if your horse is "ll" it still carries a gene to say what the appaloosa would look like if it did have appaloosa. So through test breeding you could have a horse that was "ll nn" Since your girl does not show appaloosa we do not know which kind of appaloosa she would have. So we have two question marks for that slot.

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ??

Then we have tobiano. It is a simple gene that either shows or does not. The horse only needs one gene to show, so it can carry a non-tobiano gene. Your girl does not show tobiano so we know she is recessive.

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ?? tt

The we have overo. Overo is exactly the same as appaloosa in terms of the two part gene. You have the O's which say if there is overo or not, and the p's which say what kind of overo it is. Overo is also like white in which you can never have an "OO" horse, it would be double white, which is lethal. That is why you don't want to breed two overo's together. So your girl does not show overo, therefore she is recessive and we do not know which type she would have.

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ?? tt oo ??

Lastly we have flaxen, silver dapple, and flea bitten. These are all similar in that they only show up on certain coats. So you will never see any of these on the same horse together.
Flaxen is only on chestnuts and it is recessive. So a chestnut horse that does not show flaxen can carry flaxen. Your girl is a bay, so we do not know what her flaxen gene looks like.

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ?? tt oo ?? ??

Silver dapple is only on black based horses; bays, browns, and blacks. Silver dapple is dominant, so just having one silver dapple gene makes it visible. Your girl does not show silver dapples, so we know she is "zz".

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ?? tt oo ?? ?? zz

Flea bitten is only on greys. It is a recessive gene just like flaxen and works in exactly the same way. Your girl is not grey so we do not know her flea bitten gene.

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ?? tt oo ?? ?? zz ??

That is all we know from her own description, but you can look at her parents and offspring to find out some of her other genes.
Her mother is Helen, who is a splash overo. Splash overo is coded as "Oo pp" since she has two of the same P's that is all she can pass on, so we know that one of your girls unknown P's is a "p"

E? A? cc rr dd gg ww ll ?? tt oo ?p ?? zz ??

That is all we can tell for sure, her father carries a red "e", so it is possible that your girl does as well, but we cannot know that without test breeding and her mother's father is an unknown, so we don't know what he could have passed on to her. Its likely that she is "AA" because both of her parents and two fo her known grandparents are bays, but that has to be checked with test breeding again.

Hopefully that helps some, sorry for the wall of text XD. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. Or if you need more clarification there are several people who really known the genetics that can help.

[Deekkru]

Ahh, that was so extroardinarily helpful! Thank you toffeeca!

*shuffles off to decode her male*

[Keilin Alyr]

Here's the baseline code for any solid bay horse:

A- E- cc rr dd gg ww ll -- tt oo -- -- zz --

You can match each pair of genes to a trait on the Stable website. A- means bay agouti with an unknown recessive (At- would mean brown, a- would mean black). E- means non-chestnut extension (but she might carry chestnut, hence the unknown), while a chestnut horse would be ee.

The agouti/extension table in particular may be a little confusing at first, but you'll get used to it. Just remember they do play off each other. EE and Ee horses will show their base agouti coloration (bay, brown, black). ee horses will mask their agouti coloration and show chestnut.

And sorry if the rest of my explanation comes off as condescending. Genetic questions get asked a lot, and I apparently confuse people sometimes, so I try to be a thorough as possible. =)

cc means not cream, rr means not roan, dd means not dun, etc. These double-recessives correspond to traits that only show if a dominant gene is present. You'll see below that silver dapples (zz on your girl) is relevant to her lineage, though since the trait is dominant-linked, it isn't carried.

The double dashes on some of the traits correspond with traits that don't show up on a solid bay. The first corresponds to a specific type of appaloosa marking, the second to a specific type of overo paint, the next to flaxen (which only shows up in chestnut horses), the last to fleabitten (which only shows up in gray).

---

Now for Gwendolyn specifically:

Her mother is a bay splash overo. Her father is a bay silver dapple. Since both parents are mine, I can make things easy for you and post their known genetic strings:

Helen: AAt E- cc rr dd gg ww ll (--) tt Oo (pp) -- zz --
Chanda: A- Ee cc rr dd gg ww ll (--) tt oo (-p) F- Zz --

You can see where I started to fill in some unknowns. Helen had a brown (At-) foal with a black (aa) father, so I know she carries recessive brown agouti. Chanda's father was solid chestnut (ee), so Chanda must be Ee extension, and he has sired solid chestnuts with flaxen (ff) chestnut mothers, so part of his flaxen code is F-.

Note Helen's overo genetic string: Oo pp. Since Helen can only pass down -p to her children, we know something new about Gwen's genes despite the fact that Gwendolyn does not show overo herself.

A- E- cc rr dd gg ww ll -- tt oo -p -- zz --

Let me know if any of this is confusing or if you'd like some suggestions on how to fill in some of those unknowns. =)

[Keilin Alyr]

Heh, looks like toffeeca beat me to the punch. I prefer her explanation far better than mine though, so it's just as well. =)

[toffeeca]

Yay! I'm so glad it was helpful!

Kinda off topic but, Keilin have you always put you e's before your a's?

[Keilin Alyr]

Yup, I don't know why, but I always prioritized base agouti over extension. I guess I just take for granted that the agouti can be masked, and I like to know what base color the horse is first.

Either that, or I'm just weird. I'm not sure. XD